I know I know, I told myself that I would blog during my time in Los Angeles and it's already been THREE WEEKS since I got here! So today is Sunday of the 3rd week. I'd just had dinner at Hedrick Dining Hall and am feeling really bloated at the moment. I really ought to start from the beginning.
So Mildred, Gail (my roommates) and I took the extremely long and tedious flight from Singapore to Los Angeles, with a 2 hours transit in Hong Kong. As usual, I spent my time on the plane watching movies like mad. Sherlock Holmes and The Lovely Bones was really really good. Upon our arrival in LA, we were pretty excited even though it was really really late at night. By the time we got out of the airport to wait for the hotel shuttle, it was about 11pm. The moment we stepped out of the airport, the wind blew and WHEW was it cold!! It was about 16-18 degree celsius then, if my memory serves me correct. Having come from our extremely hot and sunny island of Singapore, the cooling weather was a very much welcomed change.
The next day, we grabbed some breakfast at the hotel and slacked in our room for a few hours. Before Gail and Mildred turned on the TV to watch the World Cup. During half-time, we decided to go to the nearby McDonald's to get some take-away. And my my, was it an experience! Firstly, in America, they don't say "take-away", they say "to go", which is really weird for us cos we're so used to saying "take-away". Then, the drinks are FREE FLOW. Oh my goodness. And there is also no chili sauce available. Lastly, their portions are HUGE D: Thank goodness we shared.
In the afternoon, Samuel, a good friend of my friend, was so nice to pick us up from our hotel and drive us to UCLA. But we still had some time, so we stopped by Santa Monica en route to UCLA. Then he brought us to Third Street Promenade and we kinda walked around a bit. Then we had to go UCLA to check-in to our residential suite.
So anyway, the campus is really huge. Like really, huge. AND it's gorgeous!! The buildings are so beautiful!! Our residential suite is pretty nice too, Saxon Suites. We have two bedrooms, a toilet, a shower and a living room in our suite. Gail, Mildred and I are sharing 1 bedroom and our other roommates are Emma and Okio (I'm sorry I forgot how to spell her name) are sharing the other room. They're from Taiwan and Turkey respectively.
Classes have been very interesting. I'm taking two modules, Understanding Relationships and Introductory Psychobiology. Understanding Relationships is really different because it's a module that you'd probably never get in Singapore. Like seriously, a module that teaches you about intimate relationships and BGR? Lol, not likely! But it's a communication studies module over here. And many NUS students are taking it too. Classes are really different over here. For my Understanding R/S module, there are no notes uploaded, I just went for lecture with my pencil case and a notebook. For the next two hours, I scribbled and scrawled away on my notebook as I never had before. The professor just talked and talked and occasionally scribbled some words on the chalkboard. YES, chalkboard. LOL, I have not seen a chalkboard since I was... 11 or 12?
Introductory Psychobiology is a bit more like the lectures back in NUS, with powerpoint slides and all that. But classes here are really small though. So it's quite embarrassing to be late. Oh yes and the students here have really no qualms about speaking out in class or just raising your hand to ask a question. No hesitation at all. Oh my. Culture shock. Hahaha. It is SO RARE for anyone to even raise a hand and ask a question in lecture. Equally rare for anyone to actually answer a professor's question either!! But over here, you can even get like 2-3 hands raised at the same time. They're just not afraid to speak up at all. Or maybe we just can't be bothered. Although we do like to bombard our lecturers AFTER the lecture. I suppose that's more like our style.
And oh yes, I am really grateful to have shuttle busses in NUS. Because there isn't any in UCLA! Or well, there is one, but it kinda only goes around the outskirts of campus. So to get to class, I have to WALK. For about... 15-20 minutes. Initially it took half an hour, cos we were all feeling so lost and we had to keep checking the campus map every few minutes. But now that we're more familiar with the campus and having found a couple of short-cuts, it takes a shorter time for us to get to class now.
Initially I was taking another module called Introduction to Lesbian, Gay, Transgender and Bisexual Studies. And it was really interesting!! But the workload was a little too heavy and I was at a rather large disadvantage, not knowing much about American history or culture. So I decided to drop it and take Psychobiology instead.
Anyway, textbooks are INSANELY expensive over here!! I spent a grand total of USD 281.08 on just THREE textbooks!! It's crazy! My heart just about died at the hefty sum of money I had to spend on textbooks. Arghhh. And I could have gotten the very same Psychobiology textbook back in Singapore for just SGD 64!! Gahhhh.
Enough about the textbooks. It's a sore subject to bring up D: Thus far, I've been to Universal Studios, Disney's California Adventure Park and San Francisco. I'll blog about them another time as I've unfortunately fallen ill and am feeling a miserable wreck right now. I just hope it doesn't exacerbate and develop into a full-fledge flu.
